


There's a Lot on Your Mind

by walkthegale



Series: We’ll Start Over Again [2]
Category: Teachers (UK TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Bisexuality, Episode Tag, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 18:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13552659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthegale/pseuds/walkthegale
Summary: Jenny wants people to like her.Coda to season 1, episode 5.





	There's a Lot on Your Mind

Jenny wants people to like her. She tells Simon that, of all people, and she knows it’s true.

She’s not naturally very good at this. She never has been.

Jenny is very good at most things. She was very good at school, and at university, and now she’s very good at her job. She’s good at sports, and good at cooking, and good at keeping her life organised. She knows how to dress, and how to play the piano, and how to fix her own car.

 _You’re cold, Jenny._ Her mother had been the first person to tell her that, when she was eight years old, and she knew then that this was something she was not good at. Something she would have to try for.

She doesn’t always want to try. It can be hard, and tiring, and it isn’t always worth it. But Jenny wants people to like her, even when she doesn’t often like them.

Jenny would have shagged Simon in the supply cupboard, if Liz hadn’t found them when she did.

She doesn’t hate Simon, is the thing. She doesn’t particularly like him, either, but she would like him to like her.

And it’s so easy. She just has to prod, just such a tiny, little bit, just bait him a touch further and… there it is. He’s not a bad kisser, either. Very enthusiastic.

If she had been locked in there with someone else, it would have been different. Susan, sitting next to her on the floor, side by side, body warmth and almost-awkward conversation and the constant fizzing awareness of where their thighs and upper arms touch. Susan looking at her with those wide brown eyes that always feel like she can see right through her. Susan pushed against the door, with her skirt shoved up around her hips and her blouse half-undone, her mouth hot and eager against Jenny’s.

No, Susan would have been different. Jenny doesn’t think Susan is straight, but she also doesn’t think Susan knows that.

Jenny knows she stands too near to Susan when they talk, but, honestly, personal space doesn’t really seem to be a big deal among this lot, and she doesn’t think anyone has noticed. She’s not sure whether Susan herself has noticed, but Susan hasn’t made any moves to change it yet.

Today she stands close enough that their hands touch, just for a second, when she passes Susan the sweetener for her coffee. She wants to ask her how things are going, whether she can help, but Susan’s teetering on the edge today and Jenny doesn’t want her to take it the wrong way. She’s still working out the best thing to say, when Liz appears to ask whether they’re going to Simon and Maggie’s bloody flatwarming.

“Know any nice blokes you can drag along?”

Jenny catches Susan’s eye before they both say “no” in tandem, and she really doesn’t think she’s imagining the the way that Susan can’t quite look at her afterwards.

When Simon catches her in the corridor, Jenny can’t find the energy she needs to talk to him.

“See you tonight. I’ll try and drag Peter along,” Susan says, walking away from them.

Jenny thinks she’d like to smack someone, but instead, all the strength that she doesn’t have for dealing with Simon is there for being nice to Susan. Offering to help Susan. Trying for Susan.

Jenny wants people to like her. Jenny wants Susan to like her.

Susan is exhausted, and more than exhausted, any idiot could see that. The bags under her eyes have luggage of their own. Not that any of her other so-called friends seem to notice or particularly care.

Jenny had wanted that job. She still wants that job, if it comes up again. But god, she wishes the school would give Susan some support with it. _Any_ support. She wishes she knew how to help.

She can tell the difference, between wanting to be friends with someone, and wanting… something else. She’s had boyfriends, girlfriends, one-night stands. There was even one she thinks she might have loved, a few years ago. She knows what these sort of feelings look like, for her, and she knows what she would usually do next, and she also knows how incredibly inappropriate that would be when Susan is her boss now, not just her colleague. And married. Susan is married, and it isn’t Jenny’s place to pass any judgement on that.

This is the most ridiculous crush, just like half her damn Year Elevens have, and Jenny is better than this.

The rest of the day is long, and exasperating, and Jenny has no patience with anyone.

She goes to Simon’s stupid party, all the same.

She puts on a dress that could stop traffic. She smiles, and she drinks, and she mostly ignores Simon when he’s an arsehole, and she chats to Maggie, who is friendly and funny and so much too good for Simon that it’s laughable.

Susan is there, on her own, and she looks even more tired than she did at school, and totally closed-off, like the shutters are down behind her eyes.

Jenny smokes when it’s offered, and she dances, and she laughs, and she thinks that maybe these people do like her, after all. Maybe they don’t just think she’s cold anymore, and maybe she doesn’t care if they do.

Susan doesn’t speak to her all evening. Jenny doesn’t know how to approach her without fucking it up, so she doesn’t.

Jenny goes home with Brian that night. It’s easy, and she’s half-drunk, and earlier he had said that the party wouldn’t be the same without her, and it’s fun for about five minutes. Jenny is good at most things, and she’s very, very good at sex.

The next morning in the staffroom is rather enjoyable, too. She grins at everyone, and tries not to laugh, and the boys all look suitably gobsmacked, but Susan grins back at her from behind her hands, and Jenny feels lighter than she has in weeks.

It’s going to be a good day.


End file.
